Cross-Country

Posted by bronson Tue, 22 Nov 2005 17:13:00 GMT

The cross-country trip went off without a hitch. It wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be. It didn’t have many photo ops though. I’ll take the Southern route next time.

Best state to drive through: Utah
Worst state to drive through: Nebraska

It was really windy and really icy heading off the summit in Nebraska so I stopped for a few hours in the middle of the night. When I got started again I saw around 25 crashed trucks and 8 autos all the way into Des Moines. Not a single one looked like an injury crash. They all just spun off the road. It was a a tow truck driver’s dream.

I ended up in Illinois a day early so I got to visit Chris Love and meet his girlfriend for the first time. Is the Bible good literature? What do taxidermists want done with their bodies when the die? I need to figure out a way of seeing them more often.

How to make a banzai road trip more tolerable:

Eat well. This is the most important. Fill the car with bottled water, fruit, crackers, anything to help avoid fast food. Two McDonald’s meals is enough to put me right to sleep.
Sleep whenever. If your eyelids feel heavy at all you’re probably not safe to drive. Pull over and snooze for a bit. When you wake up an hour or two later, you’ll be back to 80%.
Change up the entertainment. Get a gigantic MP3 player and load it up with everything from the Foo Fighters to books on tape. Too much of one thing is not good for mental awareness.
Avoid overusing caffeine. Sure it’ll get you the next 100 miles in comfort but the 300 after that will be hell.